KODACHROME
BY HOWA
gate, one of two points of entry. A high wood
en wall studded with clumps of sharpened
bamboo, like a fence of knives, guarded the
entire village perimeter. At night great timber
crossbars were slid across the gate to com
plete the defense.
I found Pat sitting in the doorway of a
four-family thatch-roofed hut. One of the
village families had offered to cook for him,
and it was his custom to take his two daily
meals, one at 10:30 a.m. and the other at 4:30
p.m., in their hut. His menu at every meal had
been a can of sardines and four or five bowls
of rice, sometimes with a vegetable.
Pat was living in a communal house called
452
Girdle of spikes, woven into
the perimeter wall of Dak Go
Kram, protects villagers during
probes by Viet Cong and North
Vietnamese. A similar barrier
at Dak Son, in the highlands
farther south, did not prevent
the Viet Cong from breaking in
during a midnight attack last
December. With flame throw
ers, they burned to death at
least a hundred Montagnards.
a marao-a single elevated
room built on huge log piles
(pages 458-9). I noticed that
the timber frame was pock
marked by small-arms fire.
After they reach seven or
eight years of age, the vil
lage boys and girls live in the
marao, though in separate
areas. Visitors stay there
too, and Pat slept in a corner
on an army poncho, with a
Mexican serape for cover.
"Wecameinonabad
omen," Pat told me.
"Great," I said.
"What
was it?"
"That rainbow. The Jeh
believe Yang Griang, an evil
phantom, lives at the end of
it. He sucks up water from
the rivers and gives it to the
spirits of those who have
died unnatural deaths. They
wander in the forest and
RD SOCHUREK N.GS.
bring all kinds of hardship.
Rainbows are things to be
dreaded, not welcomed."
"How about wandering writers who ride in
on rainbows?"
"The Jeh are a kind and simple people.
They will do anything to make you happy.
Those women I was talking to when you came
up were asking me what they always ask me:
'When are you going to take a wife?' They
worry about visitors being happy. You ask
them any question you wish, and they will
tell you what they think you will be pleased
to hear."
At first they were pleased to tell me very
little; staying alive is too serious a matter
for much idle chatter. We called on a young